Search

Background: Several factors at the individual- and work environment-level were suggested to correlate with emotional exhaustion development in nurses. Aim: To explore nurses' perceived emotional exhaustion and associated factors by employing hierarchical modelling techniques. Methods: 1539 nurses completed the cross-sectional survey. Generalized Linear Mixed Model was performed to identify predictors of emotional exhaustion. Results: At the individual level, female gender, high workload and emotional job demands increased the risk of emotional exhaustion; instead, higher education, satisfaction with the role of follower, perceiving nursing profession as meaningful, feeling independent at work, and group closeness were protective factors. At the work environment level, hospital ward type did not affect emotional exhaustion. Conclusions: Emotional exhaustion is largely influenced by ward culture and organizational policies, and to a lower extent by socio-demographic variables. Moreover, it emerges as an intrinsic risk of the nursing profession rather than being associated with the clinical area profile.

Employee silence, the withholding of work-related ideas, questions, or concerns from someone who could effect change, has been proposed to hamper individual and collective learning as well as the detection of errors and unethical behaviors in many areas of the world. To facilitate cross-cultural research, we validated an instrument measuring four employee silence motives (i.e., silence based on fear, resignation, prosocial, and selfish motives) in 21 languages. Across 33 countries (N = 8,222) representing diverse cultural clusters, the instrument shows good psychometric properties (i.e., internal reliabilities, factor structure, and measurement invariance). Results further revealed similarities and differences in the prevalence of silence motives between countries, but did not necessarily support cultural stereotypes. To explore the role of culture for silence, we examined relationships of silence motives with the societal practices cultural dimensions from the GLOBE Program. We found relationships between silence motives and power distance, institutional collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance. Overall, the findings suggest that relationships between silence and cultural dimensions are more complex than commonly assumed. We discuss the explanatory power of nations as (cultural) units of analysis, our social scientific approach, the predictive value of cultural dimensions, and opportunities to extend silence research geographically, methodologically, and conceptually.

Background: Emotional exhaustion is the most important component of burnout syndrome, which is a threat to nurses' psychological well-being. Objectives: The study investigated the impact of job demands - workload, cognitive demands, emotional demands, role conflict - and perceived leader-follower interaction frequency on emotional exhaustion among nurses. Methods: This study was conducted at three hospitals in northern Italy through an anonymous self-report questionnaire administered to 560 nurses. Multiple hierarchical regression was performed. Results: Workload and role conflict were positively related to emotional exhaustion, whereas cognitive demands and perceived leader-follower interaction frequency were negatively related. Emotional demands displayed a non-significant relationship with emotional exhaustion. Further analyses were performed to comment on the unexpected outcome of cognitive demands. A critical role of the perception of “distance” in leader-follower relationships on burnout was found. Conclusions: This study provides novel insights into the relationship between job demands and burnout, and much needed empirical evidence on leader-follower relationships among nurses, pointing to the important role played by leader distance in nurses' well-being at work. Findings highlight the importance of training head nurses in managing their working relationship distance from their followers in order to help them soothing emotional exhaustion.

Aim: This study investigated how work relationships (perceived organisational support, supervisor and co-worker work–family backlash) and job demands (workload, emotional dissonance) can interact with work–family conflict and work–family enrichment. Background: Despite the extensive literature on the work–family interface, few studies on the nursing profession have considered the role of job demands and work relationships, focusing on both the positive and negative side of the work–family interface. Method: The study involved a sample of 500 nurses working in an Italian hospital. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to test hypotheses. Results: Analyses showed that work–family conflict has a positive relationship with job demands and supervisor backlash, and a negative relationship with perceived organisational support. Work–family enrichment was found to have a negative relationship with job demands and a positive relationship with perceived organisational support. No significant relationships were found between work–family enrichment and both backlash dimensions. Conclusion: The study confirmed the importance of promoting a balance between job demands and resources in order to create favourable conditions for work–family enrichment and to prevent work–family conflict. Implications for nursing management: The findings suggest that it may be advisable for health-care organisations to invest in measures at individual, team and organisational levels, specifically in training and counselling for nurses and supervisors.

La recherche s’intéresse au thème de la relation entre le leadership et le bien-être au travail. L’objectif de cette recherche est celui d’évaluer les relations entre le leadership transformationnel et le leadership destructif d’une part, et l’engagement au travail et l’épuisement émotionnel d’autre part, à partir du modèle exigences-ressources. Cette recherche a été réalisée au sein d’une administration publique du Nord de l’Italie, à partir d’un questionnaire (N =143). La régression multiple a montré que l’autonomie et le leadership destructif vers l’organisation sont associés à l’engagement. L’épuisement émotionnel est lié, entre autres, à la charge de travail, au leadership transformationnel et à l’autonomie. Les implications pour la recherche et pour la gestion des ressources humaines sont discutées dans la dernière partie de l’article.

We review the leadership literature published in this journal during the 50 years since its inception. Our focus is on three major contributions to leadership theory – social-cognitive, leader–member exchange, and social identity theories – as well as the role in advancing leadership theory of seminal theories published in this journal. During this period, the conceptualization of leadership has become more inclusive and dynamic, expanding to include both leaders and followers, and their team and organizational context. Dynamics pertain not only to the development over time in leader–member relationship, but also to within-person changes in active identities and behavioral styles that repeatedly occur. This complexity creates sensemaking challenges for all parties, as they both create and experience leadership processes.

Introduzione: L’interfaccia lavoro famiglia è un tema sempre più centrale negli studi sull’organizzazione e risulta di particolare rilievo nel contesto ospedaliero. Diversi studi relativi al personale infermieristico mettono in evidenza il ruolo del conflitto e dell’arricchimento lavoro-famiglia (CLF e ALF) nelle dinamiche lavorative. Obiettivi: Il presente studio si propone di approfondire la relazione tra l’interfaccia lavoro-famiglia (in termini di conflitto e arricchimento) e l’intenzione di turnover (IT) in un campione di infermiere/i italiane/i. Metodi: La ricerca è stata effettuata attraverso la somministrazione di un questionario self-report, composto da scale tratte dalla letteratura scientifica di riferimento, a un campione di 478 infermiere/i. Risultati: Il modello di regressione con l’IT come variabile dipendente evidenzia la relazione positiva con il CLF e la relazione negativa con l’ALF. Conclusioni: Il CLF si conferma un possibile predittore dell’IT, capace di influire sulla tendenza a desiderare e cercare una nuova, diversa, occupazione. Anche l’ALF risulta però capace di influire su questo esito: vissuti di arricchimento nella direzione lavoro-famiglia possono contribuire a ridurre l’IT. I risultati di questo studio suggeriscono l’importanza di costruire contesti di lavoro attenti a promuovere la conciliazione lavoro-famiglia, attraverso politiche e pratiche capaci di ridurre l’interferenza negativa dal lavoro alla famiglia e di accrescere le occasioni di crescita e di sviluppo di competenze, spendibili anche in altri contesti., Background: Work-family interface is an increasingly central research topic in organizational studies, and it is considered particularly relevant in healthcare contexts. Several studies on nursing staff showed the role of workfamily conflict (WFC) and enrichment (WFE) in influencing work dynamics. Objectives: The present study aims at examining the relationship between work-family interface (in terms of conflict and enrichment) and turnover intentions (TI), in a sample of Italian nurses. Methods: A sample of 478 nurses filled in a self-report questionnaire, consisting of different scales based on the international literature. Results: Regression analysis, with TI as dependent variable, showed a positive relationship with WFC and a negative relationship with WFE. Conclusions: The results of the study confirmed that WFC was a potential predictor of TI, ble to influence the tendency to desire a new job and look for a new occupation. WFE also had a role in influencing this outcome: perceptions of enrichment from work to family can contribute to reducing TI. The results of the present study indicate the importance of developing working contexts that will foster work-family conciliation, through policies and practices able to reduce the negative interference from work to family, and to increase opportunities to improve and develop new skills that can be used also in other contexts.

Followership is a pervasive but understudied phenomenon in organizations. The topic is relevant for nurses, as not only can followership behaviors be essential in achieving goals and improving organizational wellbeing in general, but also because leaders' and followers' working styles can influence each other. Having a brief scale for measuring followership behaviors could contribute to further research in nursing management. This study evaluates the principal psychometric properties of a brief followership scale based on Kelley's model. A brief followership scale (8 items) was administered to 559 nurses in Northern Italy. Data analysis was performed using PASW18 and Lisrel 8.72. The EFA results show a two factor solution (active engagement and independent critical thinking), confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. Both subscales show adequate reliability. This brief scale seems to be a useful tool for training and organizational research in the nursing profession.

Background: The shortage of nurses is a worldwide issue. Since turnover intention (TI) is considered one of the major determinants of turnover behaviour, it is essential to look deeper into the way it operates. Objectives: This study uses the job demands-resources model to investigate the TI of nurses, on the one hand looking at the relationship that some demands (workload, emotional dissonance and abusive supervision) have on TI and on the other, investigating the role of a specific resource (meaningful work - MW) in terms of its effect on TI and as a potential moderator of the relationship between each demand and TI. Methods: The research project was carried out in a large hospital in Northern Italy by administering a self-report questionnaire to all nurses; 630 questionnaires were distributed, 423 (67.14%) of which were completed. The statistical analyses were performed with PASW 18. Results: The results highlight a positive relationship between demands and TI and a negative relationship between meaningful work and TI. Moreover, a significant moderating effect of meaningful work on the relationship between emotional dissonance and TI also emerged. No significant moderating effects were found for the relationship between the other two demands and TI. Conclusions: This research allowed us to verify the importance of constructs such as abusive supervision and meaningful work that have not yet been extensively studied, within the context of nursing staff in Italy; it also offered a range of suggestions for organizational developments and for further investigations in this field.

Introduction: An increasing number of scholars argue that followers are a precondition for “successful” organizations. Nevertheless, followership has received scant attention in the literature. Starting from a theoretical analysis of the issue, this contribution aims to answer some questions regarding possible antecedents of Followers’ Active Engagement (F.AE), a specifc followership behavior described by Kelley (1988, 1992), described in previous works, which implies the propensity to take initiative, participate actively and be self-starters. Methods. A questionnaire was administered to 390 respondents from heterogeneous work settings. The questionnaire includes a personal data section and eight measures: F.AE; three personal/dispositional variables (extraversion, intellect, and avoiding coping), three individual-organization interaction variables (organizational citizenship behaviors directed at individuals – OCBI – and the organization – OCBO –, leader-member exchange), and a Lie scale as control variable. Data was analyzed with PASW 18. After analyzing reliability and descriptives, the relationship between the variables was explored using correlations and hierarchical multiple regression. Results. F.AE is related to six variables (25% explained variance). Three were positively related: in decreasing order, OCBO, intellect, OCBI, and Lie scale. Conversely, avoiding coping and gender were negatively related. Gender becomes signifcant only in the second step of the regression when dispositional variables are included. Conclusions. This study adds to the understanding of followers’ Active Engagement, for example by measuring some organizational dimensions as its antecedents, and has practical implications for training and human resource management policies. Further studies should clarify the dynamics that infuence followers’ behavior and the dynamics of the mutual relationship between the leader’s and followers’ behavior, shedding light on the possible consequences

The ability to transform followers into new leaders is an important task for leadership, as it guarantees organizational continuity and generativity. At the same time, however, it is a challenge that too often goes unanswered. In particular, research data emphasize that intergenerational transfer is highly critical in Italy: the number of elderly entrepreneurs, executives and top managers, for example, has increased significantly in recent years. This article presents a theoretical reflection on this issue, and has four main goals: to introduce the Italian leadership situation; to describe and understand the 'dark side of leadership' with particular attention to narcissism in leadership; to identify the main elements which can promote 'generative leadership' in organizational contexts (i.e. in this paper, a leadership based on the idea of generativity developed by Erik Erikson in 1968), highlighting the ability to achieve balance in leadership as a core aspect; and to provide suggestions about leadership training and development programmes, with a special focus on mentoring and coaching.

Even though the conflict perspective dominated work-family interface literature during the 1980s and 1990s, more recently the interest in exploring the positive side of interaction between work and family roles has been increasing. This study aimed to propose some theoretical reflections about the construct of work-family enrichment and to describe the initial validation of a brief work-family enrichment scale, based on Carlson, Kacmar, Wayne, and Grzywacz' (2006) work. The scale, which measures the two directions of enrichment (work-family and family-work), was administered to a sample of 307 respondents from two different North-Western Italian hospitals. Its psychometric characteristics are discussed in terms of factor structure, reliability, capability to differentiate among groups of subjects, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity. The results of the data analysis confirmed the two-factor structure of the instrument and are in line with the indications in the literature. Research limits as well as implications for future research are discussed.

Mentoring has been defined as “a relationship between a young adult and an older, more experienced adult that helps the younger individual learn to navigate in the adult world and in the world of work” (Kram, 1985, 2). Mentoring is a developmental relationship that can be beneficial to the mentor and the organization as a whole, as well as to the protégé (Eby, Durley, Evans & Ragins, 2006). The benefits are chiefly subjective (Allen, Eby, Poteet, Lentz & Lima, 2004), and affect attitudes, interpersonal relations, and motivation/involvement and, to a lesser extent, health-related outcomes (Eby, Allen, Evans, Ng, & Dubois, 2008). Mentoring thus seems capable of promoting organizational well-being, a goal that can be more effectively reached if mentoring is informal (Chao, Walz & Gardner, 1992).

The paper presents a survey among 300 employees in Northern Italy to assess the willingness to mentor and identify the factors that affect it. Men and respondents with previous mentoring experience indicate a higher willingness to be a mentor. Willingness is affected by personal characteristics that are perceived as necessary for a mentor and the perceived benefits and drawbacks of mentoring.